Sunday, February 20, 2005

I have been pondering the difference in what is acceptable in the different states/localities that we have lived. When my husband & I were first married, we lived in Brookings, SD. The people there acted as if I was coming from a barbaric land. They asked if I was enjoying the local amenities like running water, etc. The funny part of it was that a lot of the farms in and around Brookings did not have running water and their electric lights were just a hanging bulb from the ceiling in 1966. They had cisterns and outhouses. Many of the farmers did not have a telephone either. That really shocked me since we had had running water in the house, electricity, and phone service for years. The only place I knew of that did not having running water was a ranch near Isabel but they did have electricity & phone service. The East River perception was that we were all "cowboys" & "Indians" out west. Needless to say, I was in a state of culture shock.

This is a short list of the differences I have noticed in some of the places that we lived:

The blindness to the poor & prejudice toward Indians in Martin, SD. I have never seen a more disadvantaged economic group of people than the Indians on the SD reservations. There were families living in abandoned, wrecked cars. No houses – just those cars even in the winter! They seemed to walk or bum rides from people with cars in order to go anywhere. And yet, they were very hygienic compared to groups of the poor I have seen in other localities. The weird part was that the "whites" I knew were very sympathetic to those poor "Negroes" down South (remember this was the 1960’s).

Texans were (are) arrogant – blustery, bragging, and never forgot that Texas had been an independent country for a short while. But their personal hygiene left a lot to be desired. According to my sister who runs apartment complexes, that hasn’t changed. She does not want to rent to Texans since they mess up the apartments so badly that it costs too much to clean the apartments in order to rent them again.

Utah was very interesting. You never want to live in a state that a dominant religion controls the state government. Talk about censorship. People told me that the library would not keep books with a Protestant or Catholic bent on the shelves. I tested that statement by giving the library 2 books. Lo & behold, the one with a Catholic story line was checked out of the library in 2 weeks & never returned. A very effective form of censorship without causing waves.

We won’t go into the way that jobs, recreation, and shopping was controlled in that little town. Nor the way that education, especially for females, was substandard. It has been the only place we lived that high school graduates could not read the warning signs placed in the gas refinery where I worked. And yet, the people were very warm-hearted. The flip side through was kids & women seemed to have a lot of black eyes and bruises showing. While we lived there, I heard that Utah had more lawsuits pending than any other state in the Union. The sad part of it is that I believe that statement was probably true.

What I remember most about Montana was the individualistic personalities and their figures of speech. People from Montana say "damn" & "Goddamn" a whole lot. You really sit up & take notice when a Catholic priest says "God-damn" (without emphasis) in a friendly voice. The phrase was just a figure of speech to him similar to a friend on mine's phrase "little shits" when talking about kids.

Here, people seem to be hung up with bowel language. I’ve heard the receptionists’ in the medical clinic inform patrons "I’ve had a brain fart, I can’t remember your name." My daughter's boss in her new job recommended that she take vitamin C but that "it would give her the shits". These are professional people and it really grabs your attention when they speak in this manner.

Guess what I'm trying to say is that every locality seems to have their blindspots. Unless you're an "outsider" calling attention to this blindspot, it is never recognized.

posted by Mia at 2:46 AM
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004

And there's the point.

Well, how wonderful for Bushie Boy, he got himself a trophy to show his daddy. If it wasn’t clear what this business in the Gulf was it certainly is now.

Bush Keeps Saddam Gun at White House
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A handgun that Saddam Hussein was clutching when U.S. forces captured him in a hole in Iraq last December is now kept by President Bush at the White House, a spokesman confirmed on Sunday.

Did anyone notice that we still haven’t caught Osama bin Laden? As it would seem this war on terror isn't going so well for us, now is it?

posted by Kenzy at 8:46 AM
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Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Who's the enemy of freedom?

The beheading of Nick Berg is thick in the news today. I can’t seem to make up my mind weather those that took part in this grisly act were opportunists or were truly trying to make a statement about the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison that have recently reported to the public.

Something like this was bound to happen after the abuses were brought to the public. What gets me is that the Bush administration has taken this incident more seriously then it is taking in punishing those involved in the mistreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. So now there’s a new manhunt underway to bring the people involved in beheading Nick Berg to “justice” with that I agree, they should be punished for killing someone.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. “It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom. They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children.”

Clearly the administration is fooling themselves, and maybe even some of the country, people in Iraq could just as easily turn that statement on us at the moment. We have invaded a country, and many people have died that weren’t soldiers. So what regard did the innocent men, women, and children receive in Iraq when we were firing ammo their way?

Related Links
U.S.: Beheaded civilian was warned to leave Iraq
Qaeda Leader Beheads U.S. Civilian in Iraq -Web Site

posted by Kenzy at 9:22 AM
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Thursday, May 06, 2004

Events

I have ignored this blog, Internal Decay, for months because even though I had things to grump about it didn’t seem “cost effective” in time and emotion to write about them. Unfortunately the events that hit the news this week about the torture and misconduct to the Iraq prisoners by American government service people have shoved me out of my apathetic and individualistic mood.

Yes, always there is someone in a service as large as the military that will do what’s easiest and most beneficial. They will do things that they know are wrong but they want the pressure to be relieved. Make it someone else’s problem. That happens in all large organizations. We have rules, codes of honor, chains of command, and especially laws from our Constitution and treaties with other nations that are supposed to prevent such occurrences. Make no mistake about this event. The little people in the military organization were responding to the pressures and the culture of those above them.

Remember Occam’s razor. William of Occam is known for the scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.

Known quantities in this case is the manner of how Pres. Bush and his administration have acted since the 2000 election.
Remember:
- the Koyoto Treaty
- the ABM treaty
- the Guantanamo Bay prisoners
- the declaring of war
- the lowering of taxes after declaring war (?)
- the alienating of our closest allies in the world (Australia turning to China; United Kingdom resenting being dragged into war on false pretenses)
- the non-funding of federal programs (while saying he espousing them)
- the environmental policy
- the Patriot Act

The list is long and those were events just in the forefront of my mind. Whether you agree or disagree with those events, remember the manner in which they came about - this administrations’ manner of action.

Now we have vividly seen part of the fruit of what Pres. Bushes administration is bearing. Most importantly, is this the way we want to go?

Related Links
Two Challenges Leave White House On Defensive
Bush Sr. Has Questions To Answer On Iraq
Bush Faces Fork In Road In Iraq

posted by Mia at 2:07 AM
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Friday, February 27, 2004

Essential Knowledge

As I sit
Quietly following the breath
Mind and body fall away.

Learning to reject the will to live
Not accepting the will to die.

I wonder if I will fall in love
If I will know happiness
If I will know suffering
If I am to wander endlessly
Through this life alone.

None of that matters.
For everywhere I go
I am with myself
Do not grieve for me
As I know my true self.

I continue following the breath
As the body and mind fall away.

posted by Barnham T Marrs at 1:13 PM
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